Who won the James Harden trade?
One short year ago, the Brooklyn Nets made the blockbuster trade that blew up their bench depth, sent Houston Rockets into basketball irrelevance, and brought a new big three to the NBA. Some of us had concerns, mostly about the three dueling personalities, the ball handling, and the defense. But for the large part, the Nets were heavily favored to win the championship the minute the Harden trade was made official. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden are three of the most explosive scorers the game has ever seen and, despite glaring defensive issues, the general consensus was that they would be unstoppable.
Now, a season and a half later, we have only had the privilege of seeing the big three on the floor together a handful of times. The Nets narrowly missed the Eastern Conference Finals despite injuries to Irving and Harden, thanks to a string of legendary performances from Kevin Durant. After a nine game losing streak, the Nets currently sit at the eighth seed in the loaded east, meaning that their playoff spot is currently not guaranteed. Durant will be out until at least after the All Star break, Kyrie can only play away games for now, and all signs point to James Harden being unhappy in Brooklyn.
Hindsight may reveal that the James Harden trade was a mistake, but just to be clear, this is a no brainer trade 90% of the time. We know that talent wins championships and no one can predict injuries or citywide vaccine mandates that conflict with your superstar's politics. Yet, from where we stand now, it seems like both Houston and Brooklyn ended up losing, despite being the teams at the center of this trade.
An unhinged and color coded map of the James Harden trade.
A more organized and less insane looking graph.
The Nets ended up with James Harden, who may be on his way out as soon as tomorrow, and the Cavaliers 2024 second round pick. They lost the rights to seven first round picks and five role players. Most notably, Jarrett Allen who is an All Star caliber (snubbed IMO) starting center in one of the best– and most surprising– teams in the NBA. They also lost out on Caris Levert, who may be inconsistent, but is still a decent scoring guard who draws defensive attention. While the present day Brooklyn Nets as they stand are certainly more talented, the Nets with KD, Kyrie, Allen, and Levert are much more versatile team. Irving and Durant’s absences would hurt a lot less with Allen’s defense and Levert’s offense on the floor. Not to mention that the Nets could have made other signings with the money saved from Harden’s contract.
Houston’s end of the deal was puzzling to say the least. Why were two other teams included in the trade? Why did Houston decide to deal away Allen and Levert? As a rebuilding team, a 21 year old star center seems like the perfect centerpiece to have alongside the picks they acquired. It makes even less sense that they then traded for Victor Oladipo, who not only had an injury riddled career, but had made his preference to end up on the Miami Heat abundantly clear. At the end of the day, the Rockets ended up with four first round draft picks, six pick swaps, DJ Augustin and DJ Wilson (via the PJ Tucker and Rodions Kurucs trade to the Bucks), Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk who both left Houston in free agency. The real value of the Harden trade won’t be seen until their abundance of picks become actual players, but so far in their rebuild the Rockets have made two fatal mistakes: not keeping Jarrett Allen and not drafting Evan Mobley.
The Indiana Pacers played a surprisingly large part in the Harden trade for a team with relatively low expectations in the 2020-2021 season. Somehow, at the end of all this the Pacers have a lottery protected 2022 first round pick via Cleveland (Cavs are unlikely to be a lottery team this year), three second round picks, and Ricky Rubio’s expiring contract. It seems like they’re a team in the midst of a rebuild so they can’t be given a grade yet, but it would be wrong to call them winners in this particular trade.
That makes the winner of this trade the Cleveland Cavaliers, who ended up with Jarrett freaking Allen, Caris Levert, and two second round picks. This bundle was acquired for the small price of Ricky Rubio, Taurean Prince, two first round picks, and three second round picks. This is in addition to their impressive young core of rookie of the year (speaking it into existence) Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, Colin Sexton, and Isaac Okoro. Both in the short term and the long term, the Cavaliers gave up the least and ended up with a well constructed roster, a lot of potential, and some draft capital to boot.
Though it may be too early to call, it appears that both teams at the center of this trade ended up with the short end of the stick all the while giving rise to a new young powerhouse in the Eastern Conference.
Post note: The James Harden trade is also the reason that Caris Levert had a mid-season physical that discovered an early stage cancerous tumor on Levert’s kidney. Thanks to this physical, Caris was able to quickly remove it and return to basketball within the season. While it may be fun to consider hypotheticals, I am incredibly glad that Caris was able to treat this health condition before it became something more serious and that we continue to see him thriving on the court today.